


Two Possibilities

by Jade_Sabre



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-22 14:43:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17061716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Sabre/pseuds/Jade_Sabre
Summary: Caleb hears the ant story.  Spoilers for up to episode 45.





	1. Welcome to the Jungle

**Author's Note:**

> "But wait," I said, even as I clutched my shipper's heart while Caleb recounted the tale, "wasn't he sleeping when she told that story?"
> 
> Unbeta'd, two takes on how he might have heard the tale.

He is sleeping.  
  
He is supposed to be sleeping.  
  
He is supposed to be sleeping in the middle of the jungle.  
  
Technically speaking, he is supposed to be sleeping in a magical tiny hut in the middle of the jungle, a tiny hut sustained only by his physical presence within it, a tiny hut that will definitely still be there if he goes to sleep, and yet.  
  
And yet.  
  
He has trouble sleeping when others are around him anyway, and ten people crammed in a twenty-foot circle has him feeling downright claustrophobic.  He’d been all right when he’d been sitting up, head above the sleeping bodies around him, keeping watch, constantly aware of the hut around him and also the giant cats outside (who are _so cool_ , mostly because they’re on the outside now, so he can admire them properly).  But as he lay down, squishing into the space Jamedi had left behind, with Nott curled into his chest and Avantika’s boot by his nose and Caduceus’s staff poking into his rear and what feels like Beau’s elbow right in the middle of his back, the hut overhead seemed to close in upon him, and though he knows is it ridiculous he feels as if—  
  
what he _feels_ is as if he is back— _there_ , with the crush of bodies of people who aren’t really people, not in the head, not anymore, bodies colliding without any regard for personal space or—or anything, and he doesn’t care either, doesn’t know whether he’s facing his master or a fellow inmate, simply cowers—  
  
He closes his eyes tight and imagines hands on either side of his head, on what he now knows is searing divine magic warming him down to his toes as if he is a little child at his parents’ hearth again, making shapes in the flames, and his mother is laughing with delight.  
  
He doesn’t deserve her laughter, of course, doesn’t deserve the healing either, shouldn’t _be_ here, though which _here_ he means is lost to him; but the memory of warmth calms him, _idiot_ , _scum_ , and he clings to it all the same.  
  
He realizes he’s actually clinging to Nott’s hair, and if he’s not careful he’ll get caught in its snares, and so he very carefully begins extricating his fingers one by one, doing his best not to disturb her.  Then again, she’s always slept like the dead, at least since he’s known her; and maybe he’s forgetting, maybe in the early days she slept as lightly as he did.  She must have slept lightly at some point.  She should know better than to trust him and sleep as soundly as she does.  He’s told her what he is; he’d do anything for her.  He doesn’t understand himself; easier to think on _her_ peculiarities, and avoid his own.  
  
As he gets most of his left hand free, Jester asks Jamedi a question about the cats.  
  
He freezes; he’s sleeping by Jamedi’s knee, across from her, and she might see that he’s awake and he really is supposed to be sleeping and instead he is trying not to panic and the last thing he wants her to see is him trying not to panic.  
  
Jamedi answers, and a beat of silence follows, the conversation apparently over; but even as he contemplates extricating his right index finger, Jester is handing over a pamphlet about the Traveler.  He holds his breath as she leans over him, closing his eyes against the tickle of her sleeve as it brushes his hair.  He keeps his eyes closed as he hears Jamedi turning the pamphlet over, can imagine the expression on the man’s face, and then Jester invokes her god and Nott lets out the most noxious fart he’s ever smelled from her.   
  
He is going to die.  He is going to die from holding his breath against the smell and the last thing he is going to have seen is Jester’s wrist when he was supposed to be sleeping.  He is going to die and—she’s delicate in the most surprising places, given how strong she is, and her wrist is one of them, finely boned and oh she’d laugh to hear him thinking this, that would make her laugh, _finely boned_ , but he means it and he can’t help that he says funny things, he was taught—  
  
He is not going to die here, but he also isn’t going to give himself away with a cough and he tries to focus on their conversation.  Jamedi is saying something about Avantika, that’s _important_ , but the way Nott’s fart lingers in the tiny magical hut (sustained only by his physical presence within it) reminds him of how small a space it truly is and the asylum _stank_.  They must have been bathed, at some point, by someone, but he doesn’t remember bathing and they were animals, all of them, but horrible ones like dogs, not cats, cats clean themselves, where is Frumpkin _where is Frumpkin_  
  
Frumpkin pecks at his ear and Frumpkin is an owl and he relaxes, and Frumpkin pecks him a few more times as a reminder and then tiny talons prick their way along his neck until fluffy feathers settle in the curve where his neck meets his shoulder, warm and far too fragile.  He takes a deep breath, his eyes still shut and now watering as he gets a lungful of lingering fart but he won’t cough, he _won’t_ , and he focuses his attention on the conversation above his head.  
  
Jamedi asks Jester a question, and he thinks _ah, another victim_ , because no one can stonewall Jester for long.  “What’s the craziest thing _you_ have seen?”  
  
Jester blows out a breath and he resists the urge the open an eye and watch her think.  And then she starts talking about a bug, a bug carrying a piece of bread, they’ve traversed the entire Empire and half the Lucidian Ocean, they’ve fought merrow and an oni and poisonous snake-cats and they briefly adopted a talking bird and Fjord literally shoved a stone sphere inside himself and it disappeared and she’s talking about a _bug_ , up the stair and then across, and next thing he knows he has a mouthful of dirty sweaty goblin hair as he shoves his hands in his mouth to hide his laughter.  She’s so _serious_ ; he doesn’t have to open his eyes to see the earnest honesty in her eyes, the deadpan challenge as she waits for Jamedi’s response; and he can imagine the excitement in her face when she first witnessed the event, a _bug_ carrying _bread_.  
  
His shoulders are hunched to his ears and his lungs are burning because he doesn’t dare breathe and his chest _hurts_ and he is _alive_ , alive in the middle of the jungle in a tiny magical hut of his own making that protects not only himself but the people around him too.  And the people around him are crazy but so is he, and if the best of them is a goblin with sticky fingers and a tiefling who makes him laugh like he doesn’t deserve to laugh, like he _shouldn’t_ be able to laugh, then—they shouldn’t have a chance and yet here they are, and here he is, trying not to laugh even as Jamedi demonstrates his utter lack of humor and shuts down the conversation for the night.  
  
Jamedi’s loss, but his too, as Jester falls silent as well, and for a moment he misses the sound of her voice and then the laughter in his lungs dies away as he remembers—who is _he_ , to care about the sound of her voice?  He has work to do—work he _must_ do—the only reason he’s allowed to live is to do the work and it’s not living, not really, shouldn’t be living at all, should be the barest most miserable existence, like a worm ground under a boot; and how dare he _laugh_ , pathetic waste of space that he is, how dare he take up breath with laughter that isn’t his to have.  How dare he, for a _moment_ —  
  
But the moment is over and done with, and in that moment and for that moment he was—and _she’s_ the one who keeps—and he can’t think about that, not with everyone around him, not with Nott’s hair now sweaty and greasy and partially drenched in his spit.  The taste is foul and he won't be able to wash it out until morning but at least the fart has mostly cleared.  He wonders if the tiny hut spell allows for odors to pass through the barrier.  He will have to inspect the runes more carefully.  Perhaps he could tweak a few of them.  Perhaps he could look into the size of the thing, figure out a way to make it larger.  Not too much larger, but maybe enough to breathe.  Although in the future they won’t have Avantika and Jamedi to worry about, but Yasha is enormous and Caduceus is even worse and surely he can try to make them more comfortable, surely…  
  
He is sleeping; and he is dreaming that the stars are fragments of possibility drifting over their heads; and in one of them he is laughing, and she is smiling, too.


	2. On the Open Sea

He doesn’t follow her around the ship.  
  
He tells himself this, but logically he has observed his own behavior and has noticed that _if_ he has completed most of his tasks for the day or _if_ he finds his mind wandering from the task at hand or _if_ he is merely looking for any excuse to do something else, _then_ something else will inevitably involve finding a safe spot twenty or so feet away from wherever she is and watching what she’s doing.  Talking to her too, if she notices him and so chooses, but he’s also very good at holding a book in front of his face and pretending he’s reading it and oblivious to the rest of the world.  Usually it’s not pretend, but he hasn’t had a new book in at least a month now and he’s memorized the ones he’s got backwards and forwards and back again, and so the books have become boring and that is not how things should be and when things are not as they should be he feels like a cat given the wrong food to eat.  
  
But if he’s pretending while she’s nearby, it’s not so bad.  
  
But he doesn’t _follow_ her, and he doesn’t _seek her out_ , and he doesn’t try to take any of her valuable time unless she offers it—but oh, he hoards it when she does, selfish idiot that he is, but she’d never give it so freely if she knew—and one day she must know—but not today or tomorrow or the next, or ever, maybe, though that’s impossible, but maybe it isn’t.  One day they are going to step off this boat back onto real land, not just an island, and the world is going to crash upon them; but even with all they’ve seen lately he still feels removed, somehow, from all of that, and for a little while he finds it not so hard to pretend that things might always be this way.  
  
They’re sailing for the Divers’ Grave and he is sitting in the galley not because he is hungry but because she was eating her lunch, and so he has his food and his book in front of him and is pretending to be deeply engrossed in both.  He is pretending so well that he barely notices when she passes by him until she is sitting across from him, tapping the top of the book and saying, “Caleb,” dragging out the first syllable of his name as she always does.  
  
His eyes flick up from the page to meet hers, and she grins and his stomach squirms, probably because he hasn’t been eating anything.  Logically he knows that is not the cause, that _if_ she smiles _then_ he has butterflies, but he blames the food anyway.  “Yes?” he says, pretending he has been very engrossed in his book and she is interrupting.  
  
“Caleb,” she says again, still tapping the top of the book, and once she would have been waving her hand in front of the page instead; but that had bothered him, once, and she restrains herself on his behalf.  Not that she has ever said as much but he knows and he knows she knows and that too is—terrifying.  He closes the book and sets it on the table with a sigh, and her smile fades into a pleased, shrewd look.  “What’s your magic called?”  
  
“My what?” he asks, startled.  
  
“That magic you do.  With the trick with the coin and stuff?” she asks.  
  
He frowns at her.  “Transmutation?”  
  
“Yes!  That,” she says, clapping her hands together before flattening them on the table, spreading her fingers wide.  “Can you…make jewels with it?”  
  
He knows precisely where this is going.  “No,” he says, “at least not to the extent that you need.  At least not yet,” he says as her face falls, though honestly he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to generate enough gems of high enough quality for her needs.  “But, maybe one day?”  
  
She purses her lips in disappointment.  “Oh,” she says, “well, darn.”  
  
She doesn’t seem to have anything to immediately follow that and he doesn’t either, but if he doesn’t say something she will go away and then he will have to follow her, except he doesn’t follow her, so he will have to stay here with food he doesn’t want and a book he’s already read.  So he says, “You’ve been talking to Orly again?”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” she says, and dramatically lays across her half of the table, hand to her forehead.  “If he would just tell me how to do them we’d be okay, but what if we land and he gets off the ship and then I never see him again?”  
  
“Well,” he says, stalling for a moment, “perhaps I mean I don’t think it would be so swift, you know, since we have to pay him first.  There would be time,” he says decisively, though even as he says it he realizes he’s not sure how much they owe Orly, let alone the rest of the crew.  They might not even be able to afford to make landfall, although at this point some of the crew would probably consider being released from service as payment enough.  
  
“That’s true,” she says, perking up a little, propping her chin on her hand.  
  
“How have your regular tattoos been coming?” he asks, though this is a conversation he has memorized nearly as well as the book in his hand.  They’ve been sailing for weeks now and Jester’s been practicing her tattoos nearly as long and yet she never seems to tire of speaking of them; and he never tires of…  
  
Better to listen again than to think of it.  “Oh, you know,” she says, “I’ve practiced on nearly everyone who’s willing to let me practice on them, and a couple of the guys even came back for another, you know, so I must be getting _really_ good,” and he makes a noncommittal sound of agreement, as he always does, “but Orly’s only got so much ink and until he gets more I don’t think he’s going to let me play around as much.  I mean I can still practice tapping patterns into tables and pillows and stuff but,” and she shrugs, “that’s not as much fun.”  
  
“I…imagine not,” he says.  
  
“And I mean,” she says, “since we’re not pirates anymore, I guess we’re not going to be boarding any more ships, so there aren’t going to be new people to give tattoos to for a while.”  
  
“Well,” he says, and this is a new thought, this idea of life after piracy, “we are heading for a port, _ja_?  Maybe we can find Orly more ink and you a few customers.”  
  
Her eyes go wide and she sits up.  “You mean people would _pay me_ to give them tattoos?”  
  
“I mean, that’s usually how it works, _ja_?” he says, squinting at her a little, because of course she would consider them a gift freely given.  “But, ah, you would have to give them what they ask for.”  
  
“You mean no more googly-eyed smiley faces?” she asks, leaning in a bit, her expression innocent save for the twinkle in her eye inviting him to laugh at her solemnity and oh, he is tempted.  
  
He leans back in with an equal somber face and says, “Probably not.”  
  
She sits back in a huff and purses her lips again.  “I mean, I guess I could, but I don’t know, that doesn’t sound worth it.”  
  
“Coin is always worth it,” he says, and her lips twitch and her eyes are searching him, a little, seeing the man whose parents didn’t see fifty gold in their lifetime, and his stomach squirms again.  
  
“I guess so,” she says, still dubious.  “But I’m _really_ good at googly eyes, Caleb.”  
  
“The best,” he agrees, though a traitorous part of his mind that likes to wander from the conversation at hand is not talking about googly eyes, and he would very much like for that part of his mind to _shut up_ but he’s also trying to keep a straight face and not dwell on how much he is enjoying the conversation.  And then there’s the part constantly turning over the problem of the Divers’ Grave in his mind (what spells to prepare? what use is he, without his fire? is the flame his strength or just a crutch? how well can he swim? how will they convince Nott to come along? what _is_ Dashilla, what could she be, what has he read, what does he know? he recites the poem over and over again and searches all the books in his memory and can’t pin her down and he _hates_ a puzzle with missing pieces, a trap that can’t be seen without stepping into the middle of it), and then the rest of him is busy reminding himself that this is _none of his business_ and he should _leave her alone_ for her sake as much as his and yet and yet.  
  
All these thoughts happen within the space of her breath, a breath that doesn’t seem to notice that he’s not talking about googly eyes, thank whatever gods he might, and then she says, “I wonder if the Revelry has, like, a tattoo that you have to get?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he says, honestly, and then half a half-second’s remembrance lets him say, “I don’t remember seeing anything of the sort on any of them.”  
  
“You’d think they’d have some sort of way of recognizing each other, though,” she says with a bit of a frown.  “Though Orly says that’s his third trip to Darktow and only the first time he’s seen the Plank King.”  
  
He frowns back at her.  “Orly’s been to Darktow?”  
  
“Apparently,” she says with a shrug.  “You’re his apprentice, didn’t he tell you?”  
  
“No,” he says, still started, a bit perplexed as to why the tortle would tell Jester and not himself until he remembers that people like Jester and answer her questions, and people don’t like him and he doesn’t ask any questions anyway.  “He taught me some tricks for navigating the reef but I didn’t see any indication that he’d sailed through it before.”  
  
“Oh,” she says, “well, apparently he has, but apparently he’s not officially in the Revelry.  Makes you wonder how people accidentally try to get in there, though.  I mean we’re on the list,” she says, and then her expression…ripples, ever so briefly, as if she had a thought like a stone tossed into the pond of her emotions, and for a moment the worry and sadness below splashed to the top.  But then her eyebrows go up like it’s no big deal and she says, “Do you think the Plank King sends his list to the Clovis Concord?”  
  
“I don’t know why he would,” he says, crossing his arms and watching her valiantly attempt to look nonchalant about the whole affair.  “Seems to me that new members would be the perfect surprise to throw at honest ships, _ja_?  He keeps track of his own, sure, but I can’t imagine he’d bother helping the Concord keep track of them too.”  
  
“Oh good,” she says, blowing out a breath of relief, the nonchalance settling in for a moment before she says, “Because it would, like, _really_ suck if we were banished from the Revelry _and_ the Concord thought we were pirates.”  
  
“It would,” he says, because it’s true; and it’s not his place to say this and not his promise to make but he wants her to know—he wants her to know he understands; and so he says, “We’ll get you home, Jester.”  
  
Her eyes are on the table but her lips curve in a little smile, sad and genuine, and _if_ she lets him see beneath the surface _then_ his chest begins to ache in a way it shouldn’t because he is hollow and empty and awful and _nothing_ , scum and the worst sort of filth, an unfeeling, unwanted, uncaring void of darkness and unspeakable cruelty; and nothing in the disgusting garbage of his soul should—should _be there_ , let alone be capable of hurting, let alone be capable of wanting, of offering, of comforting.  But _she’s_ there, an uncomfortable thought made worse for how true it is, and somehow she keeps finding things that _shouldn’t be there_ and she doesn’t even know it and he wants to—he can’t help but—make promises he shouldn’t with the vague sinking feeling that he might keep them even if—impossible.  
  
He has set out to do the impossible, of course, but this is not it, and every step down this path feels a betrayal of everything he _is_ ; but she is there at the heart of him, under his skin, and he cannot—resist.  
  
“I know, I know,” she says, light and dismissive, but she glances up at him long enough to be grateful and he doesn’t deserve it and if she ever discovers that he doesn’t deserve it then she’ll go.  _A good thing_ , part of him whispers, _let her go and take your heart with her, you don’t deserve it anyway, you have work to do_.  
  
Caduceus can do the healing, after all; he tries to think _I don’t need her_ but he can’t, and so he tries _she can go_ but the more he pursues this line of thought the colder he goes as though all the blood in his veins has turned to ice and all that’s left is a yawning terror lazily waiting to devour him.  
  
He needs her.  Fine.  But she shouldn’t need him, and he doesn’t _want_ her to need him, and he ought to leave her be and let the others take care of her so that she doesn’t—but they’re so _bad_ at it, all of them, and he can’t just—leave her.  He _has_ to leave her.  
  
“We will,” he insists, contrary to all the voices in his head, and then he changes the subject.  “It’s, ah, gotten crazier though, huh?”  
  
Her eyes go wide in agreement even as she keeps staring at the table.  “Yep,” she says.  
  
This is not a good subject change.  He tries to recover.  “What’s…” because if he can ask her a question then maybe she’ll start talking and then he won’t have to say anything more, “what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?”  
  
She gives him a look, then, some mixture of amusement and incredulity, and says, “The craziest thing I’ve ever seen?”  
  
“Sure,” he says with a shrug.  
  
Her gaze roves the ceiling even as she smiles again.  “You know, Jamedi asked me that back when we were keeping watch together.  Did you see him with the Plank King?” she asks suddenly, leaning forward and looking at him intently.  
  
“I noticed, yes,” he says, omitting the fact that he had also been busy noticing the blood still seeping from the smaller-but-still-present hole in his chest.  
  
“That’s pretty crazy,” she says, drawing out the second word, settling back in her chair again and putting a hand to her chin.  “Somewhat undead guy working for Avantika but also working for the Plank King?  I wonder what he told him?  Why didn’t we talk to him more?”  
  
“Well,” he says, without particularly having a good answer, “he…was…on the other boat.”  
  
“With Avan-ti-ka,” she says, and in the name he hears echoes of Toll the Dead and winces a little.  “ _That_ was pretty crazy.”  
  
“Yes,” he says, but it was also macabre and he doesn’t think she’s quite ready to talk about it, even if she does parade around in the dead woman’s clothes on a daily basis.  But she is frowning again and he is unused to this task, trying to make the conversation more lighthearted, let alone cheering someone up.  She will do the heavy lifting—she would laugh, but he can’t tell her he’s thinking this—if he can only land upon the right question.  She’d smiled, talking about Jamedi.  Worth a shot.  “What did you tell Jamedi?”  
  
“Him?  Oh,” she says, startling out of her frown.  “Oh, I mean—look, Caleb,” she says, clasping her hands and setting them on the table, leaning in conspiratorially, “we’ve seen some pretty crazy shit.”  
  
“That we have,” he says, mirroring her pose, inclining his head.  
  
“Right,” she says, lowering her voice.  “But, look, this one time, I saw a bug.”  
  
“A bug,” he says.  
  
“Don’t sound so skeptical.”  
  
“I am not skeptical I am merely repeating what you are saying to show that I am paying attention,” he protests, but he feels his eyes crinkling and hers are twinkling in response.  
  
“Well,” she says, “hush,” and he obediently closes his mouth and puts his clasped hands in front of it for emphasis.  “This one time I saw a bug carrying, like, a piece of bread that was, I don’t know, like five or six times its size, and he was carrying it on his back, you know, _and_ he was carrying it up stairs.  Like up,” and she mimes it inching its way up the stair, “and then it would turn and go across,” and her fingers scurry across the air, “and then it would turn and go up,” and again her fingers dart up, “and then across again.”  
  
She meets his gaze as she finishes speaking and waits, her expression dead serious, not even a twinkle in her eye, and he lowers his hands enough to say, “Maybe it was an ant.”  
  
“An ant?” she says, the barest hint of surprise in her voice.  
  
“Yes you know I have read about them being able to carry things much larger than they are,” he says, still matching her gaze, some small dramatic part of him that definitely should have been dead thinking he could drown in those eyes, another much louder and more pragmatic part of him thinking he’s had enough of drowning lately, thank you, they all have.  But most of him is matching her gaze and trying not to blink first and it’s a test, a challenge, and he thrives on those.  “And you know I have seen them carrying things, you know, very large things comparatively, from campsites and picnics and such, but I have never seen one going up the stairs.”  
  
“An ant,” she repeats thoughtfully, and then she shrugs a bit, not blinking either.  “Maybe.  I don’t know.  I wasn’t paying attention to what it was, just what it was doing.”  
  
He can’t help it; his face cracks a bit of a smile as he leans in closer and whispers, “It does sound pretty cool.”  
  
He may have lost the battle but he wins the war as the biggest, brightest smile lights up her face, without any sadness or loneliness or worry lurking behind it, and she says, “It was _so cool_ , Caleb!  I must’ve watched it for, gosh, at least an hour.  Like it must’ve been working so hard, but it didn’t even seem to care, right?  Like it just kept going up,” and she mimes it again.  
  
“And across,” he says, finishing the gesture, and he is starting to grin and she’s beaming back at him and he can’t he doesn’t he hasn’t he isn't he won’t he shouldn't  
  
he _basks_ in it, as if he hasn’t a care in the world.  As if she doesn’t either.  And it’s not true for either of them but for this moment they can grin at each other like idiots over the thought of a bug climbing the stairs with bread on its back and it’s—nice, better than nice but he stops himself at the brink of anything more because any second now he’s going to remember—  
  
“I mean I know we’ve seen, you know—” she starts, and he waves her off.  
  
“It’s definitely the craziest,” he says, and now something wistful touches her smile, something grateful, and he is the _worst_ , but he can’t stop smiling at her, can barely stop the next words out of his mouth.  “I—”  
  
“You what?” she says when he stops, giving him the _you’re mysterious, Caleb_ look, and suddenly she’s paying him too much attention and his neck gets hot and he casts about for an answer before the heat reaches his ears.  
  
Unfortunately, honesty is the only response in his grasp.  “I wish,” he says, and that’s not how he wants to say this, so he tries again, “I—” _admire_ is wrong too, “you have the most” don’t say _wonderful_ “unique perspective, sometimes,” he says, and that’s not quite right either.  
  
“Oh?” she says, still paying too much attention and now his ears are hot and she’s definitely going to notice that and he shouldn’t have kept talking he should _stop talking_.  
  
He keeps talking.  “You noticed the ant.”  
  
“I did,” she says, and then, with a bit of a rueful smile, she says, “I spent a lot of time staring at stuff as a kid.”  
  
“ _Ja_ ,” he says, and the smile on his face is fond and painful and doesn’t belong there, has no _right_ to be there, what is he _doing_ why is he _still talking_.  “But you…notice good things, _ja_?  I would not have noticed the ant,” he admits, and this is straying too close to too many truths.  “And if I had, I would not have admired it.”  
  
“Oh,” she says, a little disappointed.  
  
“But I am glad you do,” he adds, and he is an _idiot_ , as if he knows what gladness is, as if—bile fills his throat and he swallows hard to force it down.  He is a _murderer_.  This is _not his place_.  
  
He wants to add, _thank you_ , but he chokes it back.  
  
“Oh,” she says, cheered in spite of him—because of him, but it’s a _lie_ , and he hates lying to her almost as much as he hates himself.  “Well, maybe you just need a change of perspective.”  
  
Something awful between a grimace and a smile draws his face tight.  “Maybe,” he says, the word awkward and foreign on his tongue.  
  
“I’ll help you,” she says cheerfully, and all the voices in his head grind to a halt.  “Tell you what, next time I see a bug doing something cool, I’ll come get you and we can watch it together, okay?”  
  
He stammers out something resembling _okay_ , and the first voice to restart is just a wordless desperate _yearning_ , as if he could be so easily fixed—as if he is even fixable, and with that the other voices roar to life.  
  
“Great!” she says, and then she says, “well, enjoy your lunch!” and she has skipped off before he can close his mouth again.  To see things as she sees them—how she finds _joy_ , even when she is hurt and lost and lonely and afraid—  
  
Impossible.  
  
And a tiny traitorous voice—not loud enough, not loud at all, whispering out from the place where nothing should be—says, _just like an ant carrying bread up the stairs_.


End file.
